in the dirt since history began

Grid Not Goal – Part 3: Capitulation

Final of the series. Part 1 is here and Part 2, which seems to have gone over like a fart, is here. In any case, we’ll try and keep this last part brief. -M

ANARCHY, from the Greek, means without rulers. So what does it mean to be an anarchist? It’s certainly a striving to surrender to no authority above one’s own conscience, a desire to not be ruled. But to be ethically principled, recognizing the evil in imposing the absolute power of a truth, there must certainly be another component to this anarchism: to, in turn, not wield power over others.

Statelessness/lawlessness is only a temporary condition. Power Seekers see such a state of affairs as a power vacuum that, if they only play their cards right, can be taken advantage of and worked to their benefit. It’s only a matter of time before some assholes get going and start acting like a state.

An anarchist Utopia, egalitarian voluntary mutualism with a premium on individual freedom, or whatever, only works with a population comprised entirely of anarchists. What are we to do, then, FORCE people to become anarchists?

The system is a travesty, society a mob. But the part of me that looks first to our nature as human animals when putting thought to this kind of thing, recognizes the situation for what it is: an ecosystem. This is the environment in which I, a human animal, must strive to persevere. The state, despite what democracy lovers say, isn’t something for ‘the people’ to control, it’s something to cope with.

As I said, Old Montag would make a shitty anarchist. So this, I suppose I should admit, is my capitulation. My revolution is strictly… of the mind. For me, anarchism is a grid, not a goal.

“You can’t change the government because you don’t even know what you want from it. You have to reconfigure your own mind. Your current expectations of life aren’t just unrealistic, they’re not even what you want.”

and no i hadn’t read that guy before. i’ve reconfigured my mind. past thinking in terms of what i think government should do, to a revulsion at the idea of governing or being governed. i take things too far.

"We have no words to waste on you. When you reach out your vaunted strong hands for our palaces and purpled ease, we will show you what strength is. In roar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns will our answer be couched. We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of words—Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."